My rating
4 stars
Blurb
Set during World War II in Nazi Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing something she can’t resist — books. With the help of her best friend, Rudy, she learns to live on Himmel Street after her brother dies on the train ride there. She learns to read thanks to her accordion-playing foster father, Hans Hubermann, and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man who took refuge in her basement. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul and human spirit.
My thought
The book is centred around one girl and her story during WWII Germany ,the relationships she has and the things she sees. Difficult at first, but once you realize who the narrator is, and patiently wait for the narrative to begin, the story captures you. The characters are all rich, but the heroine is the best.The whole story is an amazing look at life and death, the human soul, the depths of its darkness and the hieghts of its beauty. All this is shown in the 4 years that Liesel spends in a small German town. She witnesses hatred and love, daring and cowardness and she especially learns about the absolute power of words, both her own and those that are found in Mein Kampf. I can't seem to put it down. Some parts have moved me to tears unexpectedly, others have made me laugh. The character of her father is delightful. Love the humor, the originality, the believeability of the characters and the warmth, sadness and rich life (and death) in it.
A lesson in how beautiful a person becomes when he shows compassion and love to those who are in need, repressed, and/or tortured.It'll make you laugh, cry, and know how precious life is.
This novel is elegantly written and well worth the hype
Quotes
" words can encourage hate and destruction, but they can also empower and bring hope."
“A last note from your narrator: I am haunted by humans.”
Death“Here is a small fact: You are going to die.”
Death“Her nerves licked her palms.”
Death“So much good, so much evil. Just add water.”
Death“I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They're running at me.”
Death“'When death captures me,' the boy vowed, 'he will feel my fist on his face.' Personally, I quite like that. Such stupid gallantry. Yes. I like that a lot.”
Death“By the way-I like this human idea of the grim reaper. I like the scythe. It amuses me.”
Death“I do not carry a sickle or a scythe. I only wear a hooded black robe when it's cold. And I don't have those skull-like facial features you seem to enjoy pinning on me from a distance. You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.”
Death“It kills me sometimes, how people die.”
Death“For some reason, dying men always ask questions they know the answer to. Perhaps it's so they can die being right.”
Death“Humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skill is their capacity to escalate.”
Death“The bombs were coming - and so was I.”
Death“Those images were the world, and it stewed in her as she sat with the lovely books and their manicured titles. It brewed in her as she eyed the pages full to the brims of their bellies with paragraphs and words.”
Death“I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope that I have made them right.”
Liesel“That makes two weeks. Two weeks to change the world, and fourteen days to ruin it.”
Death “Her wrinkles were like slander. Her voice was akin to a beating with a stick.”
“It amazes me, what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on, coughing, searching, finding.”
Death“It makes me understand that the best standover man I've ever known is not a man at all...”
Max Vandenburg“There were stars," he said. "They burned my eyes.”
Max Vandenberg“It's just a small story really, about, among other things: A girl, Some words, An accordionist, Some fanatical Germans, A Jewish fist fighter, And quite a lot of thievery...”
Death“There would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.”
“Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.”
Death“When they come and ask for one of your children, … You’re supposed to say yes.”
Barbara Steiner“Silence was not quiet or calm, and it was not peace.”
Death“So many humans, so many colors.”
Death“The only thing worse than a boy that hates you, is a boy that loves you.”
“The dark, the light. What’s the difference? Nightmares had reinforced themselves in each.”
“The crowd was itself. There was no swaying it, squeezing though it, or reasoning with it. You breathed with it and you sang its songs. You waited for its fire.”
“From a Himmel Street window, the stars set fire to my eyes.”
Max“People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me it's quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, with each passing moment. A single hour can consist of thousands of different colors. Waxy yellows, cloud-spat blues. Murky darkness. In my line of work, I make it a point to notice them.”
Death“He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.”
Death“They are frightened, no question, but they were not afraid of me. It was a fear of messing up and having to face themselves again, and facing the world, and the likes of you.”
Death“The ones who rise up and say,"I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come."”
Death“Then again, who am I kidding? I'm in most places at least once , and in 1943, I was just about everywhere.”
Death“Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.”
Death“Now I think we are friends, this girl and me. On her birthday it was she who gave a gift to me.”
Max Vandenburg“Summer came. For the book thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews. When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity's certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower.”
Death“One thing I’ve noticed about the Germans. They seem very fond of pigs.”
Liesel Meminger“One opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.”
Death“No-one’s urine smells as good as your own.”
Mr. Vandenberg“Wanting more is our fundamental right as Germans.”
Viktor Chemmel“Its also worthy of mention that every pattern has at least one small bias, and one day it will tip itself over, or fall from one page to another.”
Death“Those who remained were firing into the blank pages in front of them. Three languages interwove. The Russian, the bullets, the German.”
Death“Every second word was either saumensch or saukerl or arschloch. For people who aren’t familiar with these words, I should explain. Sau, of course, refers to pigs. In the case of Saumensch, it serves to castigate, berate or plain humiliate a female. Sukerl is for a male. Arschloch can be translated directly into arsehole.”
Death“Not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children.”
Dictionary“I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.”
Death“Not only did Max have less than a chance of survival than everyone else, but would die completely alone.”
Death“When she came to write her story, she would wonder exactly when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything.”
Death“If nothing else, the old man would die like a human. Or at least with the thought that he was a human.Me?I'm not so sure if that's such a good thing.”
Death
